On a typical outdoor firing range, it is customary for the targets to be mounted on a target mounting panel. Target mounting panels have typical standard sizes of 4 ft square, and 6 ft, 8 ft, and 10 ft square.
The target itself is printed on a sheet of paper or thin card. This target card may have printed on it a single bulls-eye, multiple bulls-eyes, a simulation of a human figure, or other things. Generally, the target card is smaller than the target mounting panel, so that more than one target card may be carried, side-by-side (or above or below), on the panel at the same time.
Conventionally, the target mounting panel has been made by stretching a piece of fabric, such as cotton, over a wooden frame. The wooden frame defines the outline of the square, and the fabric is tacked or stapled to the frame. A sheet of plain background paper is pasted over the whole area of the cotton fabric.
The target cards are pasted in turn over the background paper. Scoring rings are inked onto the background paper as required, the marking operation being carried out by hand, with the aid of compasses. The scoring rings, in places, pass also over the target cards.
Target cards and target mounting panels are consumable items. When a number of shots (say twenty) have been fired at a target card, the target is brought down and scoring is adjudicated, and then the bullet holes are covered with patches, made of adhesive-backed paper.
The second shooter puts twenty more bullets through the patched target. Again, the target is brought down for scoring, patched, and put up again for the next shooter. This process is repeated until the target and scoring ring markings are obliterated with patches.
Now, the target panel is removed from the target zone, and is taken to a workshop for re-covering. The old target cards and patches are removed, and the background paper is removed, to whatever extent that is possible, and then fresh background paper, and a fresh target card, are pasted onto the cotton. The panel is set aside in a dry, heated building overnight for the paste to set and dry out.
The cotton fabric panel is generally able to survive several such recoverings, perhaps four or five, at which time it becomes impractical to paste any more targets over the targets and patches already there. Often, the cotton material is still at this point serviceable, in the sense that the material is not shot away: but the target panel has to be discarded anyway, because it is so inconvenient to stick further target cards onto it.
The cotton is stretched tautly over the frame, and if the cotton or the frame should be damaged it is almost impossible to restore the tautness, with the result that the damaged panel cannot be repaired.
It is also known to make the target mounting panel from thick paperboard. (Paperboard is also called bookbinder's board, and comprises sheets of paper glued over a pressed paper core. Again the target card has to be pasted to the surface of the (fibrous) paperboard. Paperboard has the advantage over the cotton fabric panel that it is self-supporting and no frame is needed to hold the panel taut. However, paperboard is hardly less vulnerable than cotton to wet weather, and paperboard tends to be more severely damaged by the bullets passing through it than is cotton.
Paperboard is not really suitable for targets of a large area, i.e. 4 ft square and larger. Paperboard is used mainly for stick targets, i.e. targets which are mounted on a single central mounting post rather than on a frame, stick targets being generally 2 ft wide or less. For greater widths, in order to make the target rigid the paperboard would have to be thicker, which would be uneconomical.
Since the target panel is a consumable item, it is important that it be inexpensive, that it be lightweight yet robust for ease of handling, and that it can be made ready for use quickly and simply. Both the cotton panel and the paperboard panel are unsatisfactory on these counts.
It is not permitted for any portion of the target or its exposed mounting means to be made of metal (except that staples and small nails are permitted) due to the danger of ricochets.